News

20 January 2009

 

ASMI and University of Helsinki renew ALD research agreement

Equipment and materials maker ASM International N.V. (ASMI) of Almere, The Netherlands and Finland’s University of Helsinki have renewed their long-term atomic layer deposition (ALD) research agreement for another five years.

ASMI and the University of Helsinki have been pioneers in ALD technology for more than two decades. ASMI’s ALD technology stems from its 1999 acquisition from Neste/Fortum Corp of ALD reactor maker Microchemistry Ltd of Espoo, Finland. Microchemistry was founded in 1987 by Dr Tuomo Suntola, who in 1974 invented what was then known as atomic-layer chemical vapor deposition (ALCVD), or atomic-layer epitaxy (ALE), originally for the deposition of zinc sulfide films for electroluminescent displays. Research on ALD processes was started at Helsinki University of Technology in 1982 by professor Lauri Niinistö.

“The cooperation of university basic ALD research and ASMI equipment development has proved very successful in bringing ALD process technology to the semiconductor industry since this project began in 2004,” says ASMI’s chief technology officer Ivo Raaijmakers. “It has also strengthened our portfolio of intellectual property rights in this process technology platform. Recently, the accord has generated some key innovations in such areas as noble metals and phase-change materials deposition, previously thought impossible with ALD, which are currently under study for high-volume manufacturing,” he adds.

“In the current global situation of fragmented research funding, this agreement is exceptional both in terms of length and volume,” comment professors Markku Leskelä and Mikko Ritala, heads of the ALD research group at the university's Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry. “We and our students also greatly appreciate the kind of collaboration with industry that takes us to the area where basic and applied research becomes mixed,” they add. “The questions we deal with in our research are fundamental by their nature, yet their solutions may find rapid use in future semiconductor devices.”

Earlier this month, ASMI entered into a certified manufacturer and partnership agreement with chemical manufacturer SAFC Hitech of St Louis, MO, USA for certain ALD source materials for advanced ultra-high-k insulators (providing certification criteria for the chemical source materials, a license to certain ASMI ALD patents, and a partnership for the marketing and further development of the chemical source materials). The newly developed ‘cyclopentadienyl’ source materials will enable ALD of next-generation strontium- and barium-based ultra-high-k insulators with dielectric constants exceeding 100 (e.g. for production of much smaller capacitors for DRAM memory chips, and microprocessors with smaller transistors, starting in about 2011).

See related items:

ASM International cutting 200 jobs in Almere

ASM and SAFC Hitech partner on ALD of strontium- and barium-based ultra-high-k insulators

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